jonkennethdear Https://viewsfromahill.com/2018/02/22/foreign-countries-16-the-possession-of-joel-delaney-1972/

WildestDreams This is essential 70's supernatural horror. The acting is all solid and the story is told remarkably well. The mythology is executed perfectly. Its well defined, but not so overly explained that all the mystery is rung dry. Joel and his family are very believable, which adds this "day-in-the-life" feeling to the movie. This makes the discomforting events that unfold all the more effective to the viewer. The suspense drew me in from the first minute and never let up. On top of that, the shock scenes are genuinely shocking even for the 70's. The ending may be a bit formulaic but the overall experience is in no way dampened by it. The only real problem I had with this film is the stiff, generic title that compelled me to hold off on watching it for too long.

morrison-dylan-fan With a friend of mine telling me that I only had the weekend to watch this film before he traded it in on Monday.Due to this,I made sure to clear my weekend,so I would get plenty of time,to see this controversial film.The plot:Norah Bensin is shocked when she gets a phone call from the police,telling her that they have arrested her brother (Joel Delaney),for attempting to murder his landlord.When Benson gets her brother out on bail,she starts to notice that Joel seems to be acting very strangely.This is due to Delaney being very menacing and taunting,to her and the rest of their friends and family.As police start discovering that there is someone going round beheading girls (including a girl,that Joel had been dating)Norah starts to get nervous,that a friend-who Joel keeps talking to,is having a very bad influence on him.Sadly for Benson,she discovers that Joels "Friend" was shot dead six months ago.Although,he has left something very nasty behind..View on the film:I feel that this is a film of two halves-With the first 50 minutes of the film,disappointingly,taking a bit too long to really get the characters and the story going.With the pleasantly improved second half,I was very shocked at how extreme some of the scenes looked.The things that shocked me the most were, the children getting threatened with a very real sharp knife next to their throats,and the very uncountable full-nudity shots of the boy getting forced to undress by Delaney,which I am certain would not be passed by any film ratings board now.An interesting moment in the film is an exorcism (a scene that the actors clam is of a real exorcist.)The whole scene is well shot in a very raw,almost documentary look,with very intense performances from all the participants.Final view on the film:A slow opening hour,saved by a pretty gripping second half.

Mr_Ectoplasma Wealthy, upper class New Yorker Nora Benson (Shirley MacLaine) lives in a brownstone with her two children. One evening, after inviting her younger brother Joel (Perry King) over for dinner, she has a disturbing phone call, and when she arrives to check on him, finds him chanting and screaming, being escorted by the police. Her concern grows as his behavior becomes stranger and stranger - she takes him into her home, hoping to help him. But suspicions arise when Nora stumbles upon his girlfriend's decapitated body, and he speaks of his Puerto Rican friend, "Tonio", a suspected serial killer who decapitated city women the year before, and apparently vanished. Desperate for answers, Nora herself enters a completely different world - Spanish Harlem - in hopes of finding out what is wrong with her brother.A little-known possession tale from the early 1970s, based on Ramona Stewart's novel, "The Possession of Joel Delaney" is a pretty interesting supernatural thriller that emerged a year before the possession classic "The Exorcist". While "Joel Delaney" isn't nearly as graphic, it is still a fairly chilling, suspenseful, and well-made movie. I read the book, which was very scary, and this film adaptation is done nicely. The beginning sets the stage for the eerie things that are to come, and it just progresses from there to the disturbing (and quite controversial) last ten minutes of the film. What I liked most about this movie was the sense of discomfort that it gave off, even during the most simple of scenes. There's an overall air to the movie of things not being right, and the paranoia and fear translates from the characters to the audience very well.It also takes advantage of the New York city setting, somewhat a reminiscent of "Rosemary's Baby", and later used in "The Eyes of Laura Mars" in a similar fashion. Thematically, this is also quite a unique horror picture, because of its depiction of the clashing of cultures, as our prim & proper, upper class protagonist is whirled into different surroundings, beliefs, and an overall way of life, while trying to uncover the mystery behind her brother's odd behavior. The displacement of Nora in Spanish Harlem makes for some interesting scenes in this movie. It's a fairly light film gore-wise, albeit a couple of severed heads (which I must admit, that first discovery of the body is damn chilling), but the suspense throughout holds the film together. Shirley MacLaine is excellent and extremely believable here, playing a naive, somewhat close-minded Manhattan socialite. Her performance is very real and she does a solid job throughout. Perry King plays her brother, a man who willingly "seeks out poverty" (living in a seedy apartment in Spanish Harlem), as his sister puts it, and is the center of all the supernatural events. Both MacLaine and King have good chemistry and carry the movie quite well. As for the ending, which has sparked controversy over the years due to some brief depiction of child nudity (in a non-sexual manner of course), it's pretty disturbing, but I don't really see the huge fuss about it. Anyway, the final frame of the movie leaves the viewer questioning, but also hints at one of the main possibilities, which I liked a lot.Overall, "The Possession of Joel Delaney" is a neat little horror movie that is worth seeking out if you are interested by the subject matter. The acting is top-notch (especially considering it's a '70s horror flick), there are a couple of good scares and some efficient atmosphere, and the suspense is well-plotted. I liked this film, it's not perfect, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Recommended for fans of supernatural horror movies, especially all those that emerged from the 1970s. 8/10.